A Parenting & Lifestyle Blog From A First Time Mum

Month: June 2016

Things have been super hectic over the past few months. My work as a freelance journalist is really picking up alongside an ever increasingly busy social life, now that I have weekends all to myself again. I can’t complain, but it hasn’t left me with much time to post, so I apologise for the absence.

Determined to update you, I sat down this morning with a cup of coffee feeling super excited to share with you our mini-kitchen update.

The kitchen was always the one room in the house that I thought wouldn’t need decorating. Before Ored moved in, four years ago, he completely gutted it, putting in brand new fixtures and fittings, slate flooring and a fresh coat of paint on the walls.

But then I saw this amazing photo on Instagram which really inspired me. That’s why I love social media. You can stumble across a blog post, picture or an article which can ignite a spark and really fuel your imagination.

If you’ve watched as many home renovation shows as I have you’ll know that you can afford to be brave and use bold, dark colours in a small space which has lots of natural light. Our little kitchen fitted the bill perfectly, and with frames already hanging up on the feature wall I could see this insta-look translating really well.

Ored of course had his reservations. Where I’m impulsive, Ored is rational, preferring to problem solve before a project and not after (like me!) Whilst he argued the blue was too dark (“I know.” “Yeah, but I mean, it’s really dark.”) my confidence won through and the more we talked the more we compromised, creating a vision we could both see.

We decided to trade the white for grey, because all the rooms in the rest of the house are white, and planned to paint the two largest walls opposing colours.

And so in just over four days our kitchen went from this….

To this…

I was thrilled with the results and even happier to see Ored fall completely in love with our handiwork. His idea to paint the return and windowsill alternate colours, was just the thing to lift the room and balance the colours.

The boring, bland, plastic light fixture is the only thing left that needs changing but we’ll need some help from a qualified electrician so it’s now on ‘the list,’ which I’m hoping to get round to sooner, rather than later!

The great thing about this room update (and any paint job for that matter) is that it’s a quick, easy, low-cost way of creating a completely new look. Other things in the house, like a new sofa or a bay window seat, require more time and more money which both of which are in limited supply (as it is for most young couples).

I hope you all love it as much as I do- let me know your thoughts below!